BEIJING, Jan 24 (Reuter) - The mouthpiece of China's ruling Communist Party Friday said the organizers of the Nobel Literature Prize discriminated against Asians and hinted its disappointment that no Chinese had won the prize.

"The dearth of winners from oriental countries due to langugage barriers is a fact of unfair judging," the People's Daily said in a commentary.

Only three Asians have won the Nobel Literature Prize Rabindranath Tagore of India in 1913, Yasunari Kawabata of Japan in 1968 and Kenzaburo Oe of Japan in 1994 -- since the prize was first awarded in 1901.

"Favors were bestowed," the commentary said, adding that Tagore and Kawabata were "accidental" winners.

They stood a chance only because Tagore's works had been translated into Swedish while Kawabata's writings were "discovered" by one of the judges who was visiting Japan.

The Nobel Literature Prize was "restricted to certain regions and unfair," the newspaper said.

The commentary hinted its disappointment that no Chinese has won the Nobel Literature Prize.

"If 'fair' judges look but do not see a rising and increasingly strong Asia with a huge population and a long history and culture, then even Mr (Alfred) Nobel will not be able to rest in peace," the commentary said.

China has a population of 1.2 billion the world's largest and likes to boast that it is one of the world's oldest civilizations.

The People's Daily hit out at the organizers of the Nobel prizes for what it called "political biases."

The commentary said the Nobel Literature Prize was awarded to several writers who were critical of the now-defunct Soviet Union Ivan Bunin in 1933 and Alexandr Solzhenitsyn in 1970.

Chinese poet Bei Dao, who lives in exile in Paris, was among nominees for the Nobel Literature Prize in 1995.

Chinese have had better luck with other Nobel prizes.

Chinese-Americans Yang Chen-ning and Lee Tsung-dao shared the Nobel Physics Prize in 1957. Another Chinese-American, Samuel Ting, won the same prize in 1976.

Yet another Chinese-American, Yuan T. Lee, was a joint recipient of the Nobel Chemistry Prize in 1986.

Tibet's exiled god-king, the Dalai Lama, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for his non-violent campaign to win autonomy for his Himalayan homeland, which China has ruled since 1950.

Dissident Wei Jingsheng, widely regarded as the father of China's modern-day democracy movement, has been among nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize every year since 1993.